Movember a hairy situation

Updated 12:15 pm, Monday, December 9, 2013

David Castleberry gets a mustache trim from Jennie Altman at Ladies & Gents in San Francisco, above, while writer Steve Rubenstein shows off his Movember mustache, below right.

David Castleberry gets a mustache trim from Jennie Altman at Ladies & Gents in San Francisco, above, while writer Steve Rubenstein shows off his Movember mustache, below right.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

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The brass section of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra strikes a pose in late November showing their participation in Movember -- the mustache-growing event in support of men's health. Front row, from left: Keith Green, Brian McCarty, Larry Ragent, Kevin Rivard. Back row, from left: Adam Luftman, Bill Holmes, John Pearson, Sam Schlosser, Don Kennelly, Dave Ridge, Zach Spellman. less

The brass section of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra strikes a pose in late November showing their participation in Movember -- the mustache-growing event in support of men's health. Front row, from left: ... more

"Take a chair," said master barber Corey Santistevan a few weeks back. He was conducting a class in a South of Market beauty school on how to trim the mustache of a man misguided enough to grow one. It's unknown exactly how many such Bay Area men got sucked into the misery of a new mustache this November, but a Chronicle editor did get into the act by commanding an underling to stop shaving his upper lip for a month and record what transpired. (What happened is that the underling's upper lip began itching right away. New facial hair growth always itches.)

Anyway, Santistevan began showing several dozen of his students how to make the underling's mustache look even grander and more unnecessary. It's all about getting the proportions right, he said, and the angles in sync and the focal points adjusted.

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"If you let the mustache go," warned the man with the straight razor, "it's going to fly away. It's going to get away from you. It could tickle your nose."

The out-of-proportion underling tried to keep still, for his own good. The apprentice stylists were pointing and giggling. There is always something amusing about a man in a tight fix, as long as it isn't you. A man in a barber chair, confined by lather and linen, has time to think. The underling was thinking about how utterly useless a thing is a mustache. Perhaps the fashionistas have declared autumn mustaches to be trendy, but anyone taking the trouble to grow one soon discovers he must make peace with sucking through soda straws and wiping away spit.

That's what a mustache is all about - trying not to make a mess. A mustache is about having a piece of Velcro glued half an inch above your mouth. A mustache is about looking like Tom Selleck, or Zorro, or someone in a vest who just dealt himself a straight flush.

Sensible men steer clear. But then comes Movember. The idea of Movember seems to have started some years ago in a bar in Australia, with two well-meaning guys trying to figure out a way to fight prostate cancer. Since then, it is said that 1 million men have grown Movember mustaches to pay tribute to the wonders of the prostate exam, an experience every bit as agreeable as growing a mustache.

This year, according to the people behind Movember, more than 200,000 U.S. men raised $15 million to fight prostate cancer. That works out to $75 a mustache.

While he scraped away, Santistevan imparted the great truths: "If you're going to eat a big old messy burrito with a mustache," he said, "you better cut it in half first. And if you're going to drink a milk shake, better use a straw."

All over the Bay Area, normally sensible men were going through the same thing. One of them was San Francisco lawyer Mick Thomas, who started growing his mustache on Nov. 1 in honor of a friend's father, a prostate cancer patient. Thomas said he could not wait to shave off the mustache, and neither could his wife.

"I don't really like it," he said. "They look cheesy."

All month he had not gotten a proper kiss from his wife. "One peck on the cheek," said Thomas. "That's been it."

Another mustache newbie was San Francisco high school student Liam Butler. His mustache lasted two weeks, which, Butler said, was not enough time for it to look like anything worth keeping.

"Until a mustache looks like something, it doesn't look like anything," he said. "That's what mine didn't look like."

Every week or so during Movember, Thomas and other mustache newbies were invited to return to the Institute of Esthetics and Cosmetology at Seventh and Folsom streets for another free trim. When The Chronicle underling returned late last month, stylist Naiomi Collins said that his mustache was "coming along."

After pomading the mustache and pretreating the mustache and soaking the mustache in aromatic balms, Collins got around to trimming. She stared long and hard at the mustache before identifying a grand total of six hairs that, she said, needed to be cut. "We call them stragglers," she said.

It took about an hour to cut the six hairs because of all the pomading and pretreating. The underling pointed out that he was running short on hair of any nomenclature and that he was willing to put up with stragglers. But Collins said no.

She used a power clipper to run a straight edge along the edge of the mustache, as if trimming a hedge. That, she said, imparted depth, character, balance and proportion. "It fits your personality," she said. "Quirky. Villainous."

Even with November mercifully in the books, the villainy continued. The big Movember mustache contest and fundraiser took place Thursday, with prizes for best mustache, worst mustache, best-dressed man wearing a mustache and best-dressed woman not wearing a mustache. But The Chronicle underling did not qualify to enter. After a month of napkin wiping, burrito cutting and soda straw sucking, the clock had run out on November, a month with only 30 days instead of 31 days and thank goodness for something. One dollop of shaving cream and, with a few strokes, the misery of Movember swirled down the drain.

Besides, if a fellow doesn't shave off a mustache in December, he can't grow one next November.

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